Hi! I am really excited about festivids, and I'm thrilled that you're making me a present in one of these tiny (or at least small) fandoms that we share! First and foremost, I want you to have fun and do festivids however you want to do it, and if that means totally ignoring this that is fine by me. If you want more information about me or what I like about the sources or music suggestions, read on, but don't take any of this letter as a strict guideline - I like all kinds of vids (including critiques) and I like surprises and I like these sources, so you're pretty sure to make something I'll like.

I'm fine with almost any rating or content - the only thing is that I'm phobic about needles, but I can usually watch them unless it's an extended slow-mo sequence.

Almost everything I requested is a safety fandom, so if you're panicking about what you matched on there are plenty of easy-to-ahem options!

I listen to music in many genres and languages; I like vids that do cool mismatch things with music style and source, and vids that match the song and source style/time period, and vids that use cool lyrics, and vids that use cool musical tone, and vids to spoken words or sound effects or whatever, and vids to classics, and vids to stuff I've never heard of, and so on. For non-English media, I do have a particular fondness for vids that match the origin/language of the source and the origin/language of the song, but that's not the only thing I like, so if you don't know Mexican/Kenyan/Maori music don't worry about it. Use any music you want; my suggestions are just there in case you prefer to have something to use as a starting point for brainstorming.

The thing about music for me, though, is that I'm somewhat hard of hearing in a way that sometimes makes it difficult to parse lyrics (but I hear volume and instruments just fine). I will happily watch vids even when I can't hear the lyrics very well, but it helps me a lot if I can follow along with them in text form - if the lyrics to the song you want to vid can't be googled easily, I'd really appreciate it if you included them in your post or offered subtitles.

1. Sleep Dealer (on dvd/ahemable, Mexican/American - Spanish and English)Music: I never really have strong ideas about music, so feel free to ignore any suggestions - they're just here for brainstorming purposes. I've been thinking about Mexican or Latin@-American border music recently, because of the way the film negotiates with borders - but other music, like political songs or songs about love or songs about water or whatever, would be fine by me.

Details: I think this is my favorite scifi film of the last decade, practically - it's just so smart about globalization and war and bodies and the future; I love the way it deals with a very contemporary set of scifi issues in the future it imagines. So I would love anything about the speculative fiction-ness of the future, the political ramifications of that specfic, or anything about the Luz/Rudy/Memo threesome and their relationships. Go in the direction of the political, or the character study, or the imagined-future, or the squee about the source, or whatever!

2. Paris Is Burning - 1990 (documentary, on DVD/ahemable, USA - English)Music: I've got nothing except vague suggestions for 80s music! And I think it might be kind of cool to reclaim Madonna's Vogue for the original voguers.

Details: I love this film so much - queer families and gender play and gorgeous outfits and dance and happiness, and all the ways that people negotiate with poverty and capitalism and AIDS and racism and oppression. It's such a powerful film (with bonus dancing). I'd love a vid that dealt with this film politically, or something about family, or something joyous and dance-y, or something about one or some of the people involved, or other things I'm not thinking of now.

Some notes: Paris is Burning is a documentary about the late-1980s (drag) ball scene in New York - so it's about (mostly) black and Latino gay and trans* people dancing, doing drag, voguing, and performing, and about why the balls are important and about the culture that grows up around the balls. But it's also full of oppression (AIDS, racism, gay bashing, gender/sexual violence, gender policing, poverty, unemployment, capitalism) - it's about something people do for fun, but the ball scene is partly a reaction to oppression, so people talk about it all the time, and sometimes show it in potentially triggery ways. And the documentary itself, of course, turned the (white woman) filmmaker into a real filmmaker, and did basically nothing for most of the people who agreed to be in the documentary, so there's that documentary conditions-of-production problem. That said, I really enjoy it, and it's all available on youtube if anyone is interested in checking it out.

3. Whale Rider (2002) (available on DVD/ahemable, New Zealand - English and Maori)Music: I didn't make any music suggestions in the request form, because I couldn't think of any, and I still can't. Sorry!

Details: Pai is amazing! I'd love a vid that's all about her. But the film is beautiful in so many ways - the visuals are great - so a vid about the plot, or about Pai's relationship with Koro, or something like that, would be great too.

4. Marx Brothers (films) (DVD/ahemable, USA - English)Music: It could be fun set to basically any kind of music - old-school vaudeville music, tonally inappropriate modern music, whatever.

Details: This is one of my nostalgic-childhood film serieses - I watched the Marx Brothers all the time when I was a kid, so I have that kind of joy in the source. And I think it would make a great slapstick-y vid, or a fun comedic vid, or a serious business vid about politics, or pretty much anything. Whee!

5. Pumzi (on the "Africa First Volume 1" DVD; not ahemable anywhere I could find, Kenya - English)Music: I don't know much about Kenyan music, but if you do I love that kind of match-up of musical origin and source origin. Or anything about water, or about scifi, or about journeys, or whatever.

Details: This short film is *gorgeous* - I love the aesthetic and the framing. Gosh is it beautiful. And I love the way it combines a sf-y dystopic future with a magical-realistic or fable-ish sensibility. I don't really have a strong sense of anyone in Pumzi as a character, so it's hard for me to imagine character-centric vids (though I'm sure I'd like them); I just mostly focused on the visuals and the premise and the politics. Also, it is like a vidder's dream - nobody moves their mouths to talk, it's only 20 minutes long, and it's just beautiful.

6. The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (on DVD/ahemable, USA - English)Details: This might be the best queer film I've seen lately - it does such a great job of intersectionality and queer histories. I love Randy and Evie and their relationship, I love Randy's family and her friendship with Frank, I love Evie's negotiation of her new identity.

7. The Middleman (on DVD/ahemable, USA - English)Music: I always think quirky when I think about The Middleman; in my music library, that means things like the Ditty Bops or Of Montreal, but it might mean something totally different in yours. Or sometimes I think about classic country for The Middleman - music that takes itself charmingly seriously. Or whatever is fine by me!

Details: I love basically everything about the Middleman! I would love a vid about their hijinks, or about the Middleman and Wendy saving the world, or Wendy and how awesome she is, or basically anything.